The Kite Runner

During our Contemporary Fiction unit at the end of the year, we will be reading novels and writing responses to various prompts developed from quotes from the text.

You may choose to write a fictional, biographical, or autobiographical narrative, essay, or poem.

If you are not engaged by any prompt in particular, you are permitted to respond to another quote that may have leapt off the page to you or to reflect on something personal. There are some quotes without prompts; feel free to respond to them if you so desire. If you find yourself uninspired by any of the prompts and are unable to find a quote or topic about which to write on your own, you are welcome to go back to a previous section's prompts/quotes and choose from there as well. The goal is to write in response to some motif, theme, or emotion from your experience with the text.


Reading 1 (Chs. 1-4, pp. 1-30)

• “I became what I am today at the age of twelve.” (p. 1) Write your personal narrative that begins with this statement (substitute any age you see fit) or write a short story that begins with this line.
• “Inside sat framed family pictures.” (p. 5) The pictures we frame tell our stories. Look around your house. What stories do your pictures tell? You may wish to focus on one picture in depth or several in breadth.
• “People say that eyes are the windows to the soul.” (p. 7) Look in the mirror for several minutes, staring into your own eyes. Do they reveal your soul? Write about what you see.
• “things my teacher hadn’t mentioned” (p. 8)
• “true to his nature: He was incapable of hurting anyone.” (p. 9)
• “That Afghan tendency to exaggerate – sadly, almost a national affliction” (p. 11) What American tendencies do we have? Write a poem that explores them.
• “Every other sin is a variation of theft.” (p. 16) Do you agree with Babba’s interpretation of sin? Write a personal essay in which you agree or disagree.
• “Real men didn’t read poetry.” (p. 17) Write four paragraphs exploring the concept of “real” men and women. In the first paragraph, begin every sentence with “real men don’t”; in the second, “real men do.” In the third paragraph, begin every sentence with “real women don’t”; the fourth with “real women do.”
• “Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them in with your favorite colors.” (p. 19)
• “History isn’t easy to overcome. Neither is religion.” (p. 22) Examine these statements in the context of American culture.
• “We saw our first Western together.” (p. 23) Write a personal narrative about the first movie you ever saw.
• “Seasons of rain and snow had turned the iron gate rusty and left the cemetery’s low white stone walls in decay.” (p. 24) Write a short story that ends with this sentence.
• “Drawn to the mystery of words, seduced by a secret world forbidden to him.” (p. 24) The power of words has been long discussed and debated. Write a narrative from the words’ point of view in which they are the speaker.
• “I appealed unto thy heart in vain” (p. 25)
• “one of the longest minutes of my life” (p. 27)
• “I was overcome with such sudden guilt that I bolted to the bathroom and vomited in the sink.” (p. 28)

Reading 2 (Chs. 5-6, pp. 31-51)

• “A white light flashed, lit the sky in silver.” (p. 31)
• “He always knew when to say the right thing.” (p. 33) Is there someone in your life who always knows what to say? Write a letter to him/her explaining how comforting that is to you.
• “I wished we’d stayed in the house.” (p. 35)
• “I knew of its [Hassan’s face] subtle nuances, knew each and every twitch and flicker that ever rippled across it.” (p. 37) Who, in your life, do you know as well as this? Write a descriptive piece that explores the nuances of his/her facial expressions and what they reveal. Lots of imagery and detail here.
• “life went on as before” (p. 38) Write a poem that begins with this line.
• “Here is what we do on the first day of snowfall every year.” (p. 42) Write a personal narrative that begins with this line.
• “I never slept the night before” (p. 43)
• “As with any war, you had to ready yourself for battle.” (p. 44) Write a poem that ends with this line.
• “a second face, this one lurking just beneath the surface.” (p. 47) When someone is accused of being two-faced, it is a decidedly pejorative expression. Why is it so easy for some to wear masks when for others it is not? Why do some feel compelled to do so? Explore the duality of human nature in a personal essay.
• “I find it hard to gaze directly at people like Hassan, people who mean every word they say.” (p. 48) As a society, we claim to revere honesty, yet we are uncomfortable when faced with it. Why? Write a poem in which honesty is the speaker.
• “That’s the thing about people who mean everything they say: They think everyone else does too.” (p. 48) Write a short story that ends with this line.

Reading 3 (Chs. 7-8, pp. 52-87)

• “It’s a dream, Amir agha, you can do anything.” (p. 52) The beauty of dreams is that we can achieve whatever we want. Write your dream.
• “I was the one who went to school, the one who could read, write.”
• “Sort of comfortable to have someone who always knew what you needed.” (p. 54) After a great deal of time together, as friends, family, or lovers, we begin to intuit others’ needs. Write about a person you know that well and how you intuit his/her needs.
• “hope grew in my heart, like snow collecting on a wall, one flake at a time.” (p. 56)
• “I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be.” (p. 68)
• “When he was around, the oxygen seeped out of the room.” (p. 77)
• “the mean math teacher who punished talkative students by sticking a metal rod between their fingers.” (pp. 79-80)
• “Anyway, we had this fantasy.” (p. 86)
• “In the end, the world always wins. That’s just the way of things.” (p. 86)
• “I saw something I’ll never forget.” (p. 87)

Reading 4 (Chs. 9-11, pp 88-124)

• “He knew I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again.” (pp. 91-92)
• “Summer meant…”(p. 94)
• “I stepped back and all I saw was rain through windowpanes that looked like melting silver.” (p. 95)
• “His lips moved in silent prayer.” (p. 96)
• “Somewhere, a branch snapped, and an owl hooted.” (p. 97)
• “a bone-colored moon hung in the sky.” (p. 99)
• “War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.” (p. 100)
• “I had never felt more like crying and laughing at the same time.” (p. 102)
• Hosseini writes “Panic,” describes the physiological and psychological effects of it, then ends with repetition of “Panic.” (p. 105-106)
• “What they don’t understand is that religion has nothing to do with it.” (p. 109)
• “No one trusts anybody.” (p. 111)
• “She had a voice that made me think of warm milk and honey.” (p. 114)
• “There was an unspoken code of behavior among Afghans at the flea market.” (p. 120)
• “People need stories to divert them at difficult times like this.” (p. 121)
• “Boys and girls must know the legacy of their fathers.” (p. 122)
• “It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.” (pp. 123-124)

Reading 5 (Ch. 12, pp. 125-144)

• “Suddenly, I felt the collective eyes of the flea market Afghans shift to us. I imagined a hush falling. Lips stopping in mid-sentence. Heads turning. Eyes narrowing with keen interest.” (p. 128)
• “double standard that favored my gender” (p. 128)
• “You coming here has brightened my eyes.” (p. 140)
• “I paced the living room of our apartment waiting for…” (p. 142)
• “I suspected there were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a better person than me. Courage was just one of them.” (p. 144)

Reading 6 (Ch. 13, pp. 145-165)

• “On the wood-paneled walls, I saw pictures of the people who become my new family.” (p. 146)
• “The moment I’d waited for.” (p. 147)
• “According to tradition” (p. 147)
• “Soraya and I never went out alone together.” (p. 148)
• “I could see his internal smile” (p. 151)
• “wrestled bears his whole life” (p. 152)
• “Every woman needed a husband. Even if he did silence the song in her.” (p. 155)
• “I had been raised by men.” (p. 157)
• “Anyone can teach.” (p. 158)
• “The idea of fatherhood unleashed a swirl of emotions in me.” (p. 160)
• “A man’s plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand…well, God put a lot of thought into making you.” (p. 161)
• “People here marry for love, family name and ancestry never even come into the equation. They adopt that way too, as long as the baby is healthy, everyone is happy.” (p. 164)

Reading 7 (Chs. 14-17, pp. 166-195)

• “Fifteen years of marriage had turned us into mind readers.” (p. 167)
• “The city was bursting with sounds.” (p. 171)
• “Clichés got a bum rap. Because, often, they’re dead-on. But the aptness of the clichéd saying is overshadowed by the nature of the saying as cliché.” (p. 172)
• “Hope is a strange thing. Peace at last. But at what price?” (p. 175)
• “I see America has infused you with the optimism that has made it so great.” (p. 175-176)
• “Is there a more Afghan way of dying?” (p. 181)
• “I guess some stories do not need telling.” (p. 185)
• “It always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.” (p. 185)
• “I was still searching for the right words.” (p. 194)
• “All that men had back the, all that he was, was his honor, his name, and if people talked…” (p. 195)

Reading 8 (Chs. 18-20, pp. 196-225)

• “The sun had almost set and left the sky swathed in smothers of purple and red.” (p. 196)
• “like father, like son.” (p. 197)
• “As an Afghan, I knew it was better to be miserable than rude.” (p. 201)
• “I feel like a tourist in my own country.” (p. 203)
• “Amir agha is my guest tonight and I will not allow you to dishonor me like this!” (p. 207)
• “He is blindfolded with black cloth.” (p. 209)
• “Sometimes the dead are luckier.” (p. 214)
• “Like running into an old, forgotten friend.” (p. 216)
• “Here they came. In all their glory.” (p. 216)
• “Happiness like this is frightening. They only let you be this happy if they’re preparing to take something away from you.” (p. 219)

Reading 9 (Chs. 21-22, pp. 226-255)

• “Trees still peeked over walls.” (p. 227)
• “We find the little turtle behind tangles of sweetbrier in the yard.” (p. 227)
• “There wasn’t an Afghan in the world who didn’t know at least a few jokes about a bumbling mullah.” (p. 232)
• “I was on my own.” (p. 239)
• “I thought about Soraya. It calmed me.” (p. 244)
• “The moment felt surreal – no, not surreal, absurd – it had knocked the breath out of me, brought the world around me to a standstill.” (p. 246)
• “The words spilled suddenly and unexpectedly, came out before I could yank the leash. I wished I could take them back.” (p. 248)

Reading 10 (Ch. 23, pp. 256-270)

• “Faces poke through the haze, linger, fade away.” (p. 256)
• “A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.” (p. 263)
• “Most important, forgive yourself.” (p. 264)
• “The sky was awash with streaks of red and purple as the sun set.” (p. 267)

Reading 11 (Chs. 24-25, pp. 271-324)

• “I’d been looking for the right time, the right moment, to ask the question that had been buzzing around in my head and keeping me up at night.” (p. 279)
• “There was wonder in his smile.” (p. 282)
• “grabbing onto that loose thread of hope.” (p. 282)
• “If I’d just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn’t have become sick.” (p. 296)
• “hospital life has a rhythm, the flurry of activity just before the morning shift change, the midday hustle, the stillness and quite of the late-night hours interrupted occasionally by a blur of doctors and nurses rushing to revive someone.” (p. 305)
• “In America…you will be scorned…for having committed the sin of Spoiling the End. In Afghanistan, the ending was all that mattered.” (p. 311)
• “I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” (p. 313)
• “For you, a thousand times over.” (p. 323)